News

1. Police checks

“Do you deny institutional racism exists!?” shouts a man, rising to his feet, to cheers and rumblings in a crowd of more than 70 people. There’s a pause. Then Halifax Regional Police chief Jean-Michel Blais responds:

During a particularly contentious exchange, Blais asked a questioner what level of street checks he would find acceptable, to which several members of the audience replied, “zero.”

While Blais acceded to a proposal to provide advocates for people who file discrimination complaints against police, he demurred at the suggestion that Halifax adopt more stringent street check regulations like those recently implemented in Ontario.

After three hours of dialogue, both sides remained steadfast in their points of view. In some ways, the search for common ground seemed more distant than before, but all agreed that broaching the difficult subject of police relations with minorities was a first step towards ensuring the wellbeing of the community as a whole.

El Jones attended, and I’ve asked her for her take on the meeting.

2. Immigrant women

Professional immigrant women struggle to find jobs they’re qualified to hold. “The last federal census reported that among educated immigrant women with a bachelor’s degree or higher, six out of 10 were working in jobs below their qualifications,” reports Jennifer Henderson for the Examiner.

3. CFJE objects to Brake decision

Justin Brake

Canadian Journalists for Free Expression (CJFE) has issued a statement in response to Newfoundland and Labrador Judge George Murphy’s ruling that reporter Justin Brake has no special status as a journalist that protects him from being charged with a violation of a court order related to protests at the Muskrat Falls site:

Judge Murphy wrote in his decision. “Mr. Brake’s status as a journalist was not a material fact and there was no obligation on Nalcor to bring that fact to the attention of the Court on their application for the Injunction Order or the Contempt Appearance Order.”

In its decision, the court cited a precedent from a 1991 case of Ottawa Citizen and Montreal Gazette journalists who filed suit against the Department of Defence over their treatment during the Oka Crisis. The text of that decision references precedents in US law which affords journalists no explicit protections or guarantees when covering crime scenes or dangerous locations forbidden to the public. This is a position which CJFE strongly disagrees with, particularly in cases like Brake’s where a reporter may be the sole documentary source for an issue that is clearly in the public and national interest. CJFE believes there is an obvious need here for a legislative fix.

“If a company—in this case, a crown corporation—is able to seek an injunction without disclosing that a person is a journalist in order to prevent them from covering activities which challenge its public relations, that’s a fundamental failure of the justice system to protect the real public interest. The public needs to know the truth of what happens in situations like the Muskrat Falls demonstrations,” says CJFE Campaigns and Advocacy Coordinator Duncan Pike.

I am a member of CJFE.

4. Two more taxi drivers appear in court

[Seyed] Mirsaeid-Ghazi was arrested and charged in April 2016 in relation to an alleged sexual assault in October 2015. Halifax Regional Police said a man driving a taxi in the area of Windsor and Allan streets picked up a 21-year-old female passenger he had driven on previous occasions. Police said he touched the woman in a sexual manner without her consent before dropping her off at her destination in Halifax.

[…]

Halifax Regional Police spokesperson Const. Dianne Penfound said Thursday that [Farset] Mohammad was arrested and charged in July 2016 for an alleged sexual assault in a cab in downtown Halifax reported to police in June 2015.

Both cases are still in pre-trial stages.

5. No taxis

“A Nova Scotia judge’s decision to clear a taxi driver of sexual assault on the grounds that ‘a drunk can consent’ has MADD Canada backing away from its long-standing advice to cab home after a night out,” reports Jon Tattrie for the CBC:

“In light of the situation that recently occurred in Halifax, I would certainly feel, as the mom of two daughters, that [calling a taxi] is not the first choice I’d like them to make,” Anissa Aldridge, the Atlantic director for MADD Canada, told CBC News on Thursday.

[…]

“We’ve relied on Casino Taxi, Yellow Cabs, Satellite Taxi — all of those companies — to get us home safely in the past. I think that most certainly will continue, but we also have to explore different options,” Aldridge said.

“We can’t now state that all taxi drivers might be a concern … but the option of going two, three or four people in a taxi if you’re a young woman and feeling unsafe, might be a great option.”

She urged people to plan ahead for a safe way home, either by booking a hotel, staying at a friend’s house, appointing a designated driver, or walking if it’s possible.

Views

1. Cranky letter of the day

Please allow me, on this St. Patrick’s Day, to send thanks and best wishes to all – Irish or not – of both my native land, Ireland, and my adoptive country, Canada.

‘Beannacht libh, a feile Padraig, anois agus gach la.’

Many locales here on the Island (Emyvale, Newry and even Grafton Street in Charlottetown), are named after Irish spots.

Colman O’Hare, Charlottetown

The “cranky” part comes in the form of the first comment on this rather benign letter:

Perhaps Mr. O’Hare could explain the obsession of St. Patrick’s Day, which appears to have regressed from a religious festival recognising St. Patrick (who was himself Welsh, enslaved by the Irish) to the current drunken free-for-all. History notes that the Irish came to PEI some 80 years after the English, Scottish and Welsh settlers (some would say after much of the hard work was done), but at no time are the Patron Saints of these countries recognised. In case Mr. O’Hare has himself forgotten, that would be March 1, April 23 and November 30.

Tony Gilbert

Noticed

Boing Boing is one of the oldest websites, a precursor to Buzzfeed and Vice that morphed into a blog and then into a, well, I don’t know what it is, exactly, but it’s a big thing on the internet that still attracts a lot of readers and pushes out stuff that looks like advertorial.

They’re partnered with Guinness, and ship ready-to-assemble pubs all over the world: in 27 years, they’ve outfitted more than 500 pubs, including establishments in Russia and Kazakhstan.

The Boing Boing post is illustrated with a photo of Halifax’s Durty Nelly’s, shown above, which is in turn taken from The Irish Pub Company’s website, which explains that:

Durty Nelly’s Irish Pub Halifax was designed and built by our team many years ago. Then in early 2017, the Irish Pub Company team undertook a renovation and refurbishment of Durty Nelly’s Irish Pub Halifax, in order to make it more relevant to today’s consumer.

But my first law of drinking is to never drink in a place that calls itself an Irish pub. Such places lack imagination and are uninspired derivatives of someone’s bad idea about what it means to be classy.

I mean, to each their own, but I’d rather hang out in a random varmint-infested dive bar than in a pretentious throwback to a country I’ve never visited. If I’m going to wear shoes and a shirt, there are several locally designed upscale bars in Halifax, including Obladee and Stillwell.

But all that aside, can we cut it out with the insulting, amateurish drinking nonsense that has become St. Patrick’s Day? If there’s any truth to the Irish love of drink, it has absolutely nothing to do with green beer and shamrocks and college sophomores barfing in the streets at 7am, and everything to do with bracing oneself thoughtfully against the inescapable woes of the world, a considered respect for powers greater than ourselves, including our own damned fates, and a weary sociality that borders on contempt.

There’s not a way to market that, I guess.

Government

No public meetings. (Both levels of government tend not to schedule meetings when schools are out.)

Comments

Flagging something of potential interest to readers you may want to include in the “on campus” section: Dal News launched a new feature summarizing previous Senate and Board meetings. While the summaries lack the critical eye Tim brings, and don’t carry with them a tinge of righteous anger, the Examiner can’t be everywhere…

Great news! Kudos to Dal News for implementing this feature, and to you, Mike, for letting us know. Knowledge that their proceedings and conclusions will now receive regular and wide access may itself exert positive, progressive impact on the Senate and Board. Easily accessible transparency can uniquely – sometimes surprisingly – motivate and link strange bedfellows. Please keep us informed of anything vital or of unique importance.

Two summers ago, my beau and I were crossing Europe via trains and generally pretending we were irresponsible 18 year olds. One discovery we made in that trip is that every single city, town, hamlet or village has an Irish pub. Pubs are absolutely Ireland’s #1 export, and good on them. Sure, they are predictable and can be boring. But sometimes they were exactly what was needed for that taste of home. Not home, like My Ancestral Olde Home Tara (I think my actual ancestral ‘olde home’ is closer to some dank farm in Wales, which explains why I am so bewitching), but home, like Nova Scotia, where we embrace Scottish and Irish in equal parts and half of us completely confuse the two. The mishmash of Scottish/Irish with a solid dash of Acadian (slathered on the white bread background of basic Brit Can) – that’s a lot of the secret sauce that makes Nova Scotia awesome.

[Luckily, recently our sauce is getting some delightful new spice from an infusion of non-UK immigrants. No one needs stale boring sauce. Bring on the hoisin, curry, garlic and… of course… donair #NSAwesomesauce ]

Prefab pubs are nothing new. In the 80s, there was the Duke chain of “English pubs” in Ontario. Duke of Kingston in Kingston, etc. There were several in Toronto. I was told by the owner or franchisee, whatever he was, at the Duke of Kingston pub that they were shipped in kits from the UK to fit the space. I believe it because the pubs were all very similar. Some of the pubs are still around but have changed their names.

That said, the Duke of Kingston at least wasn’t a bad watering hole at all, but that was mainly because of the interesting people from the neighborhood who drank and hung around there.

What we need are pop-up pubs for special events. The Upper Canada Brewery, I think it was, back in the days when it was an independent, had a pop-up mobile pub it would take around to festivals, fairs, concerts, etc.

For Mr Brake a quote and a link to a U S site :
” Those who gather and disseminate information to the public do not have a privilege to trespass. The Supreme Court has consistently ruled that the First Amendment does not protect journalists from laws of “general applicability” that don’t specifically target the press, including trespass laws. ”

Go and find any court which has granted any journalist a right/privilege which is not given to any other citizen. American citizens have greater rights of freedom of expression and the US press has had greater access to public institutions than the Canadian press and that is why US court decisions are important.
Just imagine if we had the freedom of expression that Americans have.

Thank you gordohfx… you hit the proverbial nail on the head. Neither NALCOR nor any other corporation should have the right to bar the press from locations where Canadian tax dollars are being spent; by all means require an escort for safety reasons if necessary and require corporate intellectual rights to be protected, but there is little else that should prevent the press from having unrestricted access to such locations, for the benefit of public awareness.

John Cascadden ; you have the same rights as the press.
Who are the press ?
Who is a journalist ?
What is the definition of a journalist ?
Has any court in a democracy defined a journalist ?
Should journalists be licensed ?
Should the press be licensed ?
Why do you restrict your notion of a free press to ‘locations where …tax dollars are spent’ ?
Should journalists have preferential access to information ?

If Rocky Jones had been stopped by police when locking up the library I very much doubt he would have waited until a public meeting to speak about it. And he wouldn’t have waited to speak until he had been arrested three times.
If you think the police have treated you improperly, speak up; call the department ASAP and follow up with a written complaint. As soon as you get home write down a description of the events including the names of the officers. And don’t give up.

Colin May asked me:
Who are the press ? Ans: they are the organizations & entities that have taken on the job to inform the public.
Who is a journalist ? Ans: Someone who purports to be one… there are a lot of bad so called journalists.
What is the definition of a journalist ? Ans: Merriam-Webster: a writer or editor for a news medium; also a person who keeps a journal.
Has any court in a democracy defined a journalist ? Ans: You tell me.. I do not know?
Should journalists be licensed ? Ans: Hooray… let’s tax someone else
Should the press be licensed ? Ans: Corporate Press are licensed as a business; Youtube and other freelance entities, not so much… does a license make one a professional or honest? I think not.
Why do you restrict your notion of a free press to ‘locations where …tax dollars are spent’ ? Ans: I did not solely restrict it to that venue, you erroneously inferred that… which is also an often seen bad journalistic habit.
Should journalists have preferential access to information? Ans: Preferential access… No.. they should have the same access as you or I; but often journalists have better resources to facilitate seeking out that information.

If it were not for the inquisitiveness of the Press, the public would be left almost totally in the dark with respect to what is occurring locally or worldwide. What we do need is is an entity that ensures what is reported is the truth or honestly portrayed as a journalistic opinion or a work of fiction.

A question for Colin May: Would you rather get your information solely from corporate and government sources and not have any reporting done by news media sources such as journalists and their ilk?